by Tim McGregor
Finding the Ouija board hadn’t been all that shocking. What was shocking was the amount of residual energy rippling through Kaitlin and Kyle’s apartment. The place was thrumming with it. Whatever haint they had stirred up at the Murder House had followed Kaitlin home. Hell, Billie thought, Kaitlin would have welcomed it with open arms.
And now Kaitlin was gone and Billie’s fears tipped over into the worst-case-scenario category. She had even gone back to Kaitlin’s building in hopes of picking up the spirit’s trail but there was no residual track to follow. Nothing but thin air.
The knock at the door startled her. No one ever knocked on Billie’s door. Getting to her feet, her hope leapt to the thought of Kaitlin. Maybe she had made her way here. She unlatched the door and pulled it open.
Mockler stood in her doorway. He smiled. “Hi.”
Billie locked up, caught off guard by his appearance. She had a crazy notion to simply close the door. She fumbled out a shaky greeting. “Hey.”
“I’m sorry to bother you at home,” he said. “Do you have a minute?”
She went flush. The apartment was a mess but he was standing right there and there was no way out of it without being rude. “Sure.”
“Thanks.”
She stepped aside and Mockler crossed into the living room and looked the place over. Her cheeks burned at the state of her flat. What was he doing here?
“Uh, can I get you anything?” She remembered the empty refrigerator and clocked the last beer she had on the coffee table. “I have, uhm, half a beer?”
“I’m fine, thanks.” He scanned through the books on a shelf. “I hope we didn’t spook you too bad the other night.”
Her back went up. “Spook me?”
“At the station. Sorry you had to go through that. Protocol can be a pain in the butt.”
“No big deal,” she said, easing her guard back down. Her hand went up to emphasize a point. “Although, your partner is a real dick.”
He laughed. “Odinbeck? He’s a charmer, isn’t he?”
Billie stuck her hands in her pockets, suddenly unsure of what to do with them. His presence made her feel awkward in her own home. “So. How have you been?”
“Stuck,” he said.
“Stuck?”
“The body you found. All the weirdo stuff in that house.” Mockler scratched his chin. “I’m stuck with it.”
“Oh,” she said. This is a business call, she realized. Why would she think anything else? “Did you identify the body?”
“Nope. I don’t think we ever will.” He looked at the floor. “So, I got nothing. Everything has fizzled out.”
“Sounds frustrating.”
“That’s why I’m here.” Mockler straightened up and sought out her eyes. “Would you take a walk with me? Through that house again?”
Her back stiffened. Why there? Why not just a walk down James Street or along the waterfront or the park? Anywhere but that awful place and she’d agree immediately. Her hands slipped out from her pockets and she fussed her hair, scratched her nose, straightened the hem of her shirt.
“I know it’s a lot to ask,” he said. “If you’re not comfortable with it, just say no.”
“I dunno. It didn’t go too well last time.”
“Yeah.” He nodded his head, recalling the incident. “You kinda freaked me out last time. But that was my issue. The info you provided helped.”
She looked down at her shoes. “I thought you didn’t believe in this stuff?”
“I don’t.”
She studied his face for a moment. The abilities she possessed had nothing to do with telepathy or mind-reading. She often had difficulty sensing beguile or deceit in others but with Mockler it was different. His face, for whatever reason, was an open book to her and the trouble there was plain to read. “It’s that bad, huh?”
He nodded again. “Something bad happened in that place, Billie. I need to figure it out.”
“I see.”
The open book policy was a two way street and the reluctance on Billie’s face was plain enough. Mockler straightened up and took a step toward the door. “I shouldn’t have bothered you with this. You went through enough already in that house. I just need to work harder.”
A tug of panic ripped at her as he made his exit. Now that he was here, she didn’t want him to go. “Wait,” she said. “I’ll do it.”
“I shouldn’t have asked. I’m sorry. No one in their right mind would want to go back there.”
“Ray,” she said, “I’ll do it.”
He studied her face for a moment before saying anything. “You sure?”
No. Not in the least.
“Let me get my jacket.”
10
THE YELLOW POLICE tape was still strung over the entrance to the house on Laguna Road, like something out of a TV show. Mockler pulled the car onto the dead grass, killed the engine and looked at Billie. “You sure? We can turn around and go home.”
“I’m sure.” She didn’t look at him, knowing he’d detect the lie if he saw her face. It would be silly to turn back now. “Just give me a second, okay?”
“Whatever you need.”
The engine ticked as it cooled and Billie stalled for time. She didn’t want to open up but if she was going to help Mockler, she had to make herself open to the dead. It was like relaxing a clenched muscle. She took a breath and gripped the door handle. “Okay.”
She expected an onslaught of emotion as she stepped out of the car but there was nothing. The old house loomed over her, as if sulking, determined to keep its secrets to itself. The air was colder here, halfway up the mountain.
Mockler walked through the grass past the side entrance they had used earlier. “The tech guys said the generator was still set up. Ah.” The metal frame of the generator flared up in the beam of his flashlight. Mockler turned the key, gave the cord a sharp yank and the engine roared up. The windows of the atrium glowed with light. “We’re in business.”
Billie watched him snap the yellow tape from the entrance and pass through. She took a breath, letting her heart open all the way, and followed him inside. Two paces onto the cracked marble floor and she faltered.
“You all right?” He moved in quick to prop her up.
“Yeah. I just don’t like it here.” Before he could offer to take her home again, she held up a hand. “I’m okay. Just saying, this is a bad place.”
His eyes narrowed at her, trying to understand. “How so? I mean, how do you know that?”
“There’s a lot of dead people here. A lot of sadness and misery. They’re everywhere.”
“And you can see them?”
She nodded. “Not all of them. Some I just feel.”
Floodlights were set up along the corridor, strings of cable snaking over the floor. He led the way. “So tell me what you see. Or feel.”
“There’s a woman here. She’s owns the place. Or she did. She doesn’t like all these other people here.”
“Who is she? What’s her name?”
Billie picked her way through the debris behind him. “She won’t say. Most of them never do.”
He seemed surprised at that. “They don’t want you to know?”
“It’s more like their old names don’t matter anymore. Not where they are now.”
“I see. So they don’t have identities anymore?”
“They know who they are. But the names they had were like artificial things. They didn’t stick after they were dead.” She watched his brow furrow, the natural scepticism running deep but conflicted now. He was taking it in, trying to square it with everything his gut was probably telling him was wrong. “This sounds crazy to you, doesn’t it?”
“A little.” He shrugged. “Hard to get my head around, ya know? But I’m trying.”
“I know you are.”
He watched her hands move. Constantly in motion, rubbing the palms together or one kneading the knuckles of the other. “Are you cold?” he asked.
“No. W
hy?”
“Nothing.” They tacked left around a corner and came to the cellar door. He pulled it open. “You still okay with this?”
“Yup.” Her hand-rubbing notched up a degree and she nodded at the door. “You first.”
“Watch out for the cable,” he said, pointing out the heavy electrical cord running down the basement steps.
Billie followed him down and her hands shot up to cup her ears. It was like someone cranked the volume up.
“What is it?” he said.
“There’s a lot more of them down here,” she said. “They’re all hollering at me.”
He stopped. “Is it too much?”
“No.” His grip on her elbow jolted her for a heartbeat. “It’s just loud. Some of them want to tell me their tragedies. Others want me to leave.”
She tugged her elbow to get him to let go but he didn’t. His eyes zeroed in on hers. “Is this dangerous? Can they hurt you?”
“Not yet.”
“What does that mean? You’re not sure?” He prodded her back up the steps.
“I’m fine. Honest.”
His concern for her safety set off some kind of alarm bell. It rang and rang and it wouldn’t stop and his hand on her elbow confused her. Or her reaction, to be more accurate, was the confusing part. What alarmed her, Billie realized, was how much he got under her skin. She barely knew the man. This was as about as close as they had gotten but it reverberated through her like a jolt. It was like cracking a bat against a baseball at the wrong angle. The vibration stung all the way up her arm.
“Tell me about this woman you see,” he said. “What does she look like?”
“She’s in her thirties, maybe. And the way she’s dressed, looks like the twenties. Sort of flapperish.”
Mockler swept his light over the immense cellar, as if looking for the woman in question. “What else?”
“She’s angry. She’s always bickering with this other man. He stays hidden. I think it was her husband.”
“What’s she angry about?”
“She feels trapped here. And she’s furious with all these other people in her house. Dead people, I mean. She wants them gone.” Billie followed the detective along, side-stepping the debris on the floor. “She did something bad.”
He stopped. “What did she do?”
Billie rubbed her hands together. “I can’t tell. She’s hiding it from me. She knows I can see her now and she’s pissed.”
“Are you cold?”
“No. Why?”
He nodded at her restless hands. “You’ve been rubbing your hands like that since we stepped inside.”
“I do that a lot,” she confessed. “When I see them. It’s like a nervous tick.”
“Right. Say the word and we can leave. Deal?”
She looked around the tangle of old furniture and boxes scattered around the floor. “I need to sit down for a second.”
Mockler flipped an apple crate over and pulled it close. Billie dropped onto it, clutching her stomach. He squatted down, eye level with her. “What’s happening now?”
“I feel sick,” Billie said. “It’s the woman. She’s trying to drive me away.”
A cold tingle traced up his spine. “They can do that?”
“Some. Powerful ones. She’s a piece of work this one. She keeps trying to squeeze my heart.” Billie snapped her head to the left, as if hearing something. Her eyes narrowed. “But she slipped up. I saw something about her. I think she killed someone.”
“How?”
“I dunno. I just got a flash of a knife. A really big one, like a machete or something. And a lot of blood.” Billie squinted into the dark. “It’s gone now, but it was like there was a purpose to it. It wasn’t done out of anger or self-defence. I don’t understand.”
Mockler studied her face as she spoke, noting the looks of shock or recoil that played over it as if she was witnessing the crime firsthand. Like most people in his line of work, he had a finely tuned radar for liars and bullshitters. Billie was reacting physically to something that he couldn’t see or hear. It was difficult to maintain his poker face.
Then her breath cut short.
“What is it?”
“She was up to something bad,” Billie whispered. “Like occult stuff. Dark magic. I don’t know how else to describe it. The killing had something to do with that.”
Watching her shiver, he put his hand on her arm. It was all he could think of to calm her. She flinched.
“This is gonna sound crazy but it was part of some ritual. Like a spell or something.” Billie looked down and was surprised to see her hand covering his. As if caught, he was about to pull away but she gripped his hand tighter to hold it still.
Don’t go.
“Do you want to leave?”
“I’m okay. She’s gone now. She doesn’t want me to see anymore.” Billie patted his knuckles once before his hand slipped away, the moment gone. “What do you know about this place?”
“I’ll tell you in a minute,” he said. “If you’re up for it, I want to know more about what you see.”
She held out her hand and he tugged her up to her feet.
“Is it always like that?” he asked. “The physical reaction?”
She nodded. “Sometimes I feel the trauma they went through.”
“Could they ever hurt you? Like in a serious way?”
“I don’t know. I’ve gotten sick from it before but nothing serious.” She shook off the last of the nausea and steadied herself. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“Do you believe any of this or do you think it’s crazy?”
He scratched his chin. “It’s hard to get my head around it, you know?”
“It is,” Billie agreed. “I never used to believe it either.”
They went on, winding through the trash and broken furniture of the dim cellar. Only one bank of floodlights had been left in the basement, its light glowing through the doorway to the farthest chamber. Mockler aimed the flashlight through the pathway ahead.
“Watch the broken glass there,” he said. “Do you know what happened to the woman you saw?”
“She died. But not here, somewhere else. I got a glimpse of an institution or a hospital. I think she went crazy.”
He looked at her sharply, as if startled.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he said and went on. “What else?”
“There’s a lot of other people here. Some of them want to leave but they can’t.”
“What’s stopping them?”
“I can’t tell. Some of them died in the house and now they’re trapped here. Others were drawn here after they died.” Billie ducked her head under a low-hanging pipe. “It has to do with the woman who owned the house. Like she caused it.”
“These other people who died here. Can you see any of them?”
“There’s a man who’s covered in blood. He’s young. Looks like a hippie, long hair and a beard. He died down here in the basement.”
“How did he die?”
“He says he was murdered. I’m getting this awful pain in my neck. I think his throat was cut.”
Again, Mockler stopped and looked at her. “Who killed him?”
“He doesn’t want to say,” Billie said. “There was a group of people involved. But he’s still afraid of them and doesn’t want to say anymore.”
“Do you know when this happened?”
Billie skewed her lips, trying to think. “Early seventies? The hippie era.”
Passing under the arched doorway, the basement opened up into a larger chamber lit up by the bank of portable lights. The caved-in pit in the centre of the floor yawned open, emptied of its awful secret.
“This is where all the bad stuff happened,” she said. Billie shivered as a cold wave passed over her. When she looked up, she clocked the detective scrutinizing her. “What is it?”
“What do you know about this place?”
Billie shrugged. �
�Nothing. It’s a haunted house, that’s it. Why?”
“I looked into the background of this property,” he said. “And you’ve just described what happened in this house.”
11
“THE HOUSE WAS built back in nineteen eighteen by a man named Edward James Bourdain. He built it for his new bride, Evelyn Francis.”
Mockler reached into a pocket and produced a handful of photographs. He held one out to Billie. An old tintype of a bearded man in a cravat standing behind a much younger woman seated in a chair. Both appeared stiff and formal but there was a light to the woman’s eyes.
“She was young,” Billie said.
“Eighteen when she married,” Mockler confirmed. “He was forty-six. Bourdain inherited the textiles mills of his father and then went on to make his own fortune in ironworks. Evelyn Francis was a blue blood of the local gentry. This house was his wedding present to her.”
Water dripped somewhere in the cellar, it’s tap-tap echoing around them.
Billie gazed at the photograph, entranced by its image. “This is her. The woman who’s still in the house.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. There’s no faking those eyes of hers.” She flapped the photo in her hand. “She’s the one who messed with things she shouldn’t have. So was he, but he was a dabbler. She embraced it.”
“Right on the nose,” Mockler said. “Bourdain was into all kinds of stuff, mysticism and witchcraft and weirdo philosophies. He got her into it but Evelyn apparently fell hard for the occult stuff. She gained quite a reputation for it too.”
Billie steadied herself. Stepping into the chamber brought a fresh wave of nausea. “What happened to her?”
“There was a police investigation after one of their maids disappeared. There were rumours that Evelyn had murdered her in a bizarre ritual but she was never charged. There was no body so no charges were ever laid.”
Billie knelt down and placed her palm flat on the floor. Her eyes closed and then after a moment, she opened them again. “She was murdered. In this room.”